Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
by The Divine Comedian
Summary: It is the eve of the second wizarding war and all Remus wants is a quiet smoke in the garden. He doesn't want to think, he doesn't want to talk, and above all, he doesn't want to remember. Enter Hermione.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes** : I was trying to make sense of the mess that is Remus Lupin in Deathly Hallows, so I basically sent Hermione to grill him about his life choices. Title from Macbeth, quotes from Macbeth and Midsummer Night's Dream, with a reference to Sonnet 18, all by Shakespeare. There will be four chapters.

 **Warnings:** … Oh boy. Child abuse. Trauma. Depression and suicidality. Dealing with depression and suicidality in ways that the author does not endorse. Abortion talk. Plus, and I can't believe I am typing this, a vaguely rapey scene involving Dementors.

To be clear: This is a story about healing, but it's a rocky road. Plus, you know, it's a road that leads to Remus Lupin at the beginning of Deathly Hallows, so it doesn't entirely get there.

* * *

 **Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow**

* * *

In his memory, it was always summer. Dog days like they had in children's books, bright and blazing. Grass dry and crackling under their feet as they ran for shade underneath leafy green treetops. Round moons residing over the dusty countryside.

And British summer was reliably short. Every day the weather held was one step closer to its own destruction: A thunderstorm, autumn, war. Every second spent pondering the consequences of things was a missed opportunity.

He remembered six boyhood summers, filled with exactly that: Everything, at once, days snatched up like sun-warmed apples from a neighbour's tree. They'd eaten green apples until their bellies ached. The stuff of Patronuses.

He remembered his first Order meeting, after Hogwarts: Right here, in the Weasleys' overgrown garden, on a stifling summer night much like tonight. He remembered James' and Lily's wedding, one hazy morning in August. The birth of Harry, the July after. Always summer.

Had James and Lily expected it to go on forever? Or had they fallen victim to the illusion of British summer – something that looked real enough, but wasn't meant to last?

 _And all of our yesterdays_ , he thought, _have lighted fools the way to dusty death_.

Or maybe Remus was just a cynical old man now.

A cynical, _married_ old man, at that. Whatever madness had begot James and Lily in the summer of 1979, he had fallen victim to it, too. The summer of 1997 would be no different. It was beautiful, and soon it would be over.

Maybe that was the reason he had taken up smoking. These breaks signified nothing, no consequences, all attention on one immediate, irrational need. Time didn't pass inside them.

"Penny for your thoughts?" said a voice in the dark.

Or maybe it did. One minute he'd been alone in the garden, leaning against the Weasleys' broomstick shed, facing away from the Burrow and that peculiar limbo between Order meeting and wedding preparations.

But then he lit up, and the flame briefly illuminated the face of Hermione, now lounging next to him. He'd seen her walking in the garden a minute ago, scattering small clusters of what looked like glowing fireflies amidst the trees and bushes.

Remus allowed himself a deep drag before answering, " _Life's but a walking shadow_." She'd get it.

Her frown confirmed that she did. "Macbeth sort of mood?" she asked.

Macbeth sort of _world_ , Remus thought. "Says the one reverting to Muggle sayings," he replied.

"What can I say," said Hermione. "It was a simpler life."

"Everything is simple when you're young," said Remus, watching the dark grey smoke dissipate in the night air and trying hard to ignore the symbolism.

She gave him a look. "And everything is complicated when you're not," she said. "It's hard to watch. _Lord, what fools these mortals be_."

"Midsummer Night's Dream," said Remus. He hadn't been in the mood for conversation, but now he couldn't help a smile. "That's a _comedy_ , Hermione."

His former student shrugged almost imperceptibly. "Someone once taught me to face my worst fears laughing."

"Sage advice," he said. "You should try it out, tell me what happens."

Underneath the thick clouds that trapped the heat close to the land, the garden seemed alive, breathing. In the trees, pinkish-white garlands rustled and jingled softly in the breeze, like so many wind chimes. Hermione's fireflies were zooming slowly across the edges of his vision. Apart from the occasional _pop_ when another Order member Disapparated beyond the perimeter, it was quite peaceful.

The air was still humming with the day's heat, and a promise lay over the land: Somewhere, something was going to burn.

Not yet, but soon.

Hermione laughed at something only she could perceive. "You know, I didn't have you down as a smoker," she said.

"I didn't exactly advertise it at Hogwarts," said Remus. "Though between Sybil's drinking and Hagrid's gambling, I wonder why I bothered. Reminds me, before Molly kills me – "

With a flick of his wand, he summoned the ashtray from under the kitchen stairs, where Charlie Weasley kept it hidden from his mother. "The ashes attract –?"

"Coalbolds," said Hermione. "I _listened_. You're more the type to smoke a pipe, though. Not cigarettes."

"Pipes are for old men," he said mildly. "I'm not that old."

It wasn't as if he'd ever smoked a _lot_ , not like Sirius used to. It was an expensive habit. He allowed himself just enough to dull the smells, the constant barrage of _human, wolf, dog, blood, sweat_ , especially around moontime. Plus, it was a weird fucking addiction. He could give it up anytime. He found he didn't want to. He didn't get many breaks.

"Six thousand cups of milky tea say otherwise," said Hermione. "Besides, I'm not that young. I've been of age for almost a year now."

At this, he laughed. "Hermione, you will eventually realise how young seventeen is," he said. "Give it a decade or two."

"Looking forward," she said quietly.

Of course, he thought. They were all in a ruminative mood, and he wasn't going to point out how wildly out of place that looked on a face as young as hers.

"Big day tomorrow," he said eventually. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Tried sleeping, didn't work," she said. "Actually, Tonks sent me. She said that I should talk to you."

He mentally combined these pieces of information: His wife and what they'd discussed last night, tomorrow's mission, the broomstick shed. "Is this about the flying tomorrow?" he asked.

Hermione nodded. "Apart from Mundungus, I'm the only one without significant flying experience. And it was Mundungus's idea, so I reckon he only has himself to blame."

"Yes, Nymphadora and I discussed this," said Remus.

"Is that the expression you want to choose?" said Hermione, trying and failing to suppress her laugh. "Tonks said you called it the worst idea anyone in the Order had since Hyde Park, 1978. Apparently you were swearing quite impressively. And coming from her… wait, do you seriously call her _Nymphadora_?"

"Never you mind what I call my wife."

Pondering that last bit clearly had her entertained for a moment. It was funny, though, he thought. The Order had had plenty of reckless ideas in the almost twenty years of its existence. But while he had always thought of himself as the voice of reason in Dumbledore's club of crazies, he actually couldn't recall a plan he had resented more.

Maybe he really _was_ getting old.

He turned serious. "The Death Eaters are observing Little Whinging," he said. "It would be foolish to assume that there won't be an aerial battle, that we won't be outnumbered, and that we won't be duelling in the air. Meanwhile, half of our number are inhabiting a body that's not their own. Your balance will be off and you'll be wearing glasses you're not used to. Your wands might react differently. Ever taken Polyjuice?"

"Not successfully," she said, grimacing. "But my best friends will be out there. And the fewer of us there are, the more dangerous it'll be for the rest. We have to do this together."

Remus sighed. "That's exactly what Moody said."

"To be fair, I'll be on a Thestral with Kingsley Shacklebolt," said Hermione. "I guess there are worse places to be during a battle. Right?" She sounded unsure.

There were literal dozens of _better_ places Remus could think of. "Still," he said, "a mile up in the air, deflecting curses from three dimensions. I think my point stands. Sorry, did my wife send you to me for reassurance?"

"I think she knows you better than that," said Hermione with a smile. "Actually, she suggested you take me flying for bit, if you don't mind. Of course there are no Thestrals here, but the Weasleys have a large number of old, wobbly broomsticks."

"Should be quite similar," he agreed.

His wife really did know him, he thought. She knew he'd prefer teaching over talking. Both Hermione and he hadn't been huge fans of tomorrow's operation. What a sneaky way to cheer them both up.

Being married was _weird_.

Satisfied that he'd thoroughly identified his wife's underlying scheme, he said, "Sure, I can take you up for a few rounds if you like."

" _Thank you_ ," said Hermione, looking equal parts relieved and anxious. "I'd ask Ron to take me flying but, you know. He's not very patient. And Tonks said she'd be another hour or so talking to Mrs Weasley, or she'd take me herself."

"No problem, let me just finish this," Remus said, waving his unfinished cigarette.

"Take your time," said Hermione, with a wry grin. "I'm not itching to go."

"Well, that's just wise." He laughed. "Sorry. Flying can be quite fun, really. When the weather is good and you're not being chased by Death Eaters, that is."

"You really are a ray of sunshine sometimes," said Hermione. "Didn't have you down as a flyer, either. I thought James was the Quidditch star in your group?"

Always more memories. It seemed to be that sort of night, Remus thought. "When James Potter is your best friend," he said, "your summers are going to take on a very specific shape. You're certainly going to learn to hang on to a broom by your fingertips."

"I'm so happy Harry has the Weasleys for that sort of thing," said Hermione, and Remus saw her gaze flicker towards the Burrow, to where a light was burning in the attic.

Ah.

"Actually," she added, "though it's much appreciated, I didn't exactly come here for a flying lesson."

He laughed. "No kidding," he said. Hermione did look like a woman with a mission, and that mission was not definitely not a couple of loops on one of the Weasleys' battered Cleansweep Sevens.

She settled in comfortably next to him, leaning against the freshly polished boards of the broomstick shed. "I was hoping for some answers before you leave," she said.

Remus mulled that over in his head. As usual – he couldn't switch it off – implications clicked into place. "The three of you are not going to return to Hogwarts, aren't you," he stated.

For a second, Hermione just stared at him. Then she caught herself. "This is about the best-kept secret in all of Britain," she said, "and you got it from, _I need some answers_?"

"No," he said. "I got it from _Before you go_. You don't expect many more opportunities to ask." He sighed. "I got it from the homework you didn't do all summer. I got it from the trainers you're wearing at all times: You're ready to run. I got it from the wretched creature hiding in the attic. Oh, was that a secret, too?"

There was a long pause. "And you disapprove?" she asked.

Remus faltered. The truth was, he hadn't formed an opinion yet. He'd just observed. It seemed so _natural_ , so 1979, he hadn't even thought to argue against their plans.

Maybe he should.

Maybe it didn't matter. Thinking it through as a rational grown-up, he said, "I'd prefer to see the three of you safe and sound in Hogwarts, of course."

"But it's not –"

He sighed. "Quite right," he said. "Hogwarts was only ever safe for Harry because of Albus Dumbledore, wasn't it? And even then, it hardly was. Severus will expect you there."

At that, she looked down, wearing an expression of contempt. "All that happened," she said, "and you still call him Severus."

"Huh. So I did," he said. This revelation took longer to process. "I guess he really had me convinced he was on our side. Even now, there's still some bits that don't quite… fit."

The Wolfsbane, he thought. Occasional outbursts of protecting Harry. Dumbledore's unfaltering trust. And Lily, years back.

He also thought of Sirius, and how some things hadn't fit then, either.

"It all fits," said Hermione, and he saw her close her eyes. "Such a horrible man," she said. "Such a horrible teacher. Remember Neville Longbottom? How can a _teacher_ be the worst fear in the life of someone like Neville?"

"I know," said Remus. "Made for a fantastic Boggart, though." He remembered that day fondly.

"I was the best bloody student that man was ever lucky enough to teach," said Hermione, "and the first time I ever got full marks on a Potion was when I sat my O.W.L. exam. Oh god. _Exams_. It sounds so petty now."

"You deserved better," said Remus quietly.

"And remember how he gave you so much grief for being unemployed?" said Hermione. "The _nerve_. As if someone of his past and attitude would have been considered employable by _anyone_ except Albus Dumbledore. Sorry, I'm angry now. I used to defend Snape. I thought I was _clever_. Rational. I thought, if he truly were a spy for Voldemort, he'd have put in more effort to get into our good graces."

"Or any effort?"

"Or that."

"Don't beat yourself up, Hermione," said Remus. "This is a man who fooled Dumbledore."

Hermione snorted. " _Peter Pettigrew_ fooled Dumbledore. But then, they both fooled you, too, and you read people like books."

That took a moment to process. "So do you. Am I right?" said Remus eventually. "But some books lie."

"I think it's the suspension of disbelief that gets people like us," said Hermione. "You. Me. Dumbledore. We're expecting a narrative. _Snape is a misunderstood hero_ is certainly a better story than _Snape was evil all along_."

"And thus Peter the coward turns into Peter the brave," said Remus. "I hate this story."

"Weird, though, isn't it?" said Hermione. "That Dumbledore's most avoidable mistakes had by far the gravest consequences. One trip to Azkaban would have been enough. Just a couple of questions. Veritaserum. Or common sense. Sirius could have been free. Dumbledore never bothered. No investigation, no trial, no evidence worth a damn. Why didn't he bother?"

The implication was clear between them. _Why did none of you bother_? Remus leant back. Explaining that would take all night, and it wasn't even Hermione's endgame. But then, what was?

"Hermione," he said. "Just from one strategic thinker to the other, I know you're not here to talk about the many failures of Albus Dumbledore. The man hasn't been dead five weeks."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You tell me what I'm here to achieve," she said. "You usually do."

"You seem keen to bring up Sirius Black," said Remus. "Go ahead. Here's a man who'd have hated being left out of the conversation."

She laughed. "I remember," she said. "I was _so_ surprised when I first saw the ring, Remus."

He regarded her. Oh, Hermione was clever, he thought. Jumping topics, keeping him on edge. He still couldn't guess what she had come to talk to him about.

"Trust me, everyone was surprised," said Remus. "Including Nymphadora."

"And you?"

He stubbed out the long-dead cigarette end in the ashtray absent-mindedly. "I haven't really stopped," he said. He was still pondering where Hermione was taking this. She'd already proven she was rather perceptive.

"I was surprised," added Hermione, and the faint glow of the fireflies suggested a rather cheeky grin had spread over her face, "because up until last week I was convinced you were gay."

 _That_ startled him. He searched her face, but could only identify a keen curiosity, not the aggressive contempt of late-night drunks in a pub in Brixton, or the quiet distress of his own mother. He let the silence linger for a moment, considering this. "You," he said finally. "Have you been listening to Mrs Black?"

Hermione shrugged. "Curious, isn't it? Everyone else seemed to just tune her out," she said. "But she was very specific. The occasional _unnatural, degenerate, tainting the blood_ – it was quite clear what she thought about you."

"You don't know half of it," said Remus quietly. "The painting really doesn't do her justice."

"I can't even imagine," said Hermione. "She must have been a complete nightmare –"

"And it's not half as bad as what she said to James, back in the day," added Remus.

Hermione seemed surprise. "Why James? Wasn't he the Pureblood? I thought she'd approve."

"She was very simple-minded about these things," said Remus. "He was the Pureblood, of course he was ringleader. Of course he was the one to corrupt her son, the rest of us were just picking through the spoils. And to be fair, James did have a gift for riling her up."

He remembered James shouting after the Blacks, across King's Cross, in the fakest Cockney accent outside a BBC whodunnit. _Oy, Dogstar! Remember I'll be picking you up for the rugby Friday!_

"But it wasn't Mrs Black that gave me the idea originally," said Hermione. "It was Sirius. He spent twelve years inside his head. I reckon he couldn't grow apart, the way you did. How he looked to you, in the Shrieking Shack."

She paused, letting those words, those memories sink in. Oh, he thought, she _must_ be doing this on purpose.

"You were thirteen," said Remus lightly, "and that's what you read into one look between old friends? How did you even spare the attention?"

"Fourteen," said Hermione, as if that was answer to either. "And of course, there's the mild-mannered, tea-drinking, aging bachelor persona you are projecting," she added. "Turns out I was wrong, and that's just that. A projection. Right?"

Remus let the silence stretch, allowing himself time to think. He lit up a second cigarette, against habit, against reason, against his promise he'd take her flying after the last one.

This sudden probe into his past life, his private life – and from Hermione, no less – was unexpected. She was trying to go somewhere with this, that much was certain. In all likelihood, this conversation was going to get way more invasive.

But he'd spend too much time in the last years with the Mundungus Fletchers of this world, seedy landlords demanding three months' rent in advance, half-feral werewolves, pigheaded Ministry bureaucrats. Having an entire conversation with someone who quoted Shakespeare at him and was able to juggle at least three ulterior motives was still novel enough to be refreshing.

Time to play.

"People come in more varieties than just gay and straight, Hermione," he said mildly.

" _Obviously_ ," said Hermione, in the tones of someone who was tired of explaining these things to her friends. And then: " _Oh_. I didn't think you did."

"And friendship is a funny old thing," said Remus. "Especially that one. A twisty path that never leads anywhere."

"True," said Hermione.

"Sometimes it crosses a river. Sometimes it vanishes into the underwood."

"Sometimes you're ambushed by marauding thieves?"

"And they'll run off with your heart." Remus laughed softly as more half-forgotten memories came up. "You'll find I did my fair share of ambushing," he said.

Hermione grinned. "I've been wondering about this since third year," she said. "Thank you for satisfying my curiosity."

She was still wearing that same look, that barely contained need for knowledge, that had greeted him from his classroom at Hogwarts every Thursday morning, back then. "Oh, I daresay I hardly did," he said.

And whatever picture he'd barely outlined, she might have got the wrong one. Seventeen-year-olds were romantics at heart, he remembered painfully. She'd imagine a love that would span decades, that bridged mistrust and betrayal and the North Sea and even death. He knew he had, at the time.

"How did it end?" she asked, proving him wrong.

"Many times, and in many ways," said Remus. "But in the end, it never did. We grew apart." Sometimes, he still found it unfathomable how much time had passed since then. "At least, I did. I dare anyone not to, in thirteen years. And then I overestimated how much time we had left. Never learnt that lesson the first time, see."

Hermione paused. Clearly she'd come with an agenda, but still – "I'm sorry,", she said. "I never asked. Are you okay now?"

He tore his eyes from the roaming fireflies, towards the Burrow's brightly illuminated kitchen. Inside, he could make out the shape of his wife against the steamed-up kitchen window. She was still deep in conversation with Molly Weasley, slightly tipsy on Molly's part, stone-cold sober on Tonks's. Occasionally they could hear laughter.

"I'm lucky," said Remus eventually. "More than I have any right to be."

What he didn't say: This was it. The last gamble he was willing to take. Yes, he'd stalled like the bone-headed middle-aged tosser Hermione believed him to be. He'd made that promise to Tonks – till death do us part – and it had been a marauder's lie, because it wouldn't. It wouldn't be death, or else it wouldn't part them. Death was not the boss of him, not anymore.

"So here we are, Hermione," he said. "You got your foot in the door. What were you going to ask?"

Hermione didn't say anything for a long while. Clearly she had aimed for a subtler line of approach. Then she said, "Talking to you is like talking to myself. No tricking you, is there? No easing you into a false sense of security?"

"You'd be surprised," said Remus. "Attack, then. Might be your last chance."

She looked uneasy at that bold invitation, but still, she was a Gryffindor. "Fine," she said. " _Harry Potter_."

He should have known.

"A fine young man of many talents," he said carefully, "with an unfortunate habit of procrastination."

Hermione laughed, despite herself. "That's what I say, but does he listen?" she said. Then she became serious again. "Harry's my best friend."

"And I'm glad of that," he said.

"You would," said Hermione. "You know the value of friends. Like James was to you. Like Sirius was. Like Peter was, before all the – ?"

"Backstabbing?" said Remus, who knew a blatant attempt at emotional manipulation if he saw one. "I can't seem to forget."

"Harry deserves to be happy," said Hermione. "He has such a hard time of it. I think it might be his upbringing."

Remus nodded. Ever since their difficult Patronus lessons, back when he'd been a teacher, Remus had been harbouring much the same thoughts.

"And of course you already know where I am going with this," continued Hermione.

"We're extracting him from the Dursleys tomorrow and he is never going back," said Remus calmly. "And that horrible chapter of his life will finally be closed. You're asking why it was ever opened."

"Someone has to," said Hermione. "Everyone always ever seems to accept this. I can't."

"And the answer is as it ever was. Complete, correct, and unsatisfactory," said Remus. "For his own safety. But I'm sure Albus explained that."

"I'm sure he thought he did," said Hermione, and then she stared into the darkness for a bit. The darkness stared back with many twinkling eyes. "Harry was never safe there," she said finally.

"It was the safest place for him at the time."

"Safe _how_?" said Hermione. "They locked him in a cupboard. They told him his mum and dad had died drunk in a car accident. They didn't feed him properly, they gave him ridiculous rags to wear, and no-one ever came to check up on him. No-one ever _cared_. After third year, after all the heart-breaking things he learned in the Shrieking Shack, after _you_ wandered off to God-knows-where, Dumbledore sent him back to them. That summer, Harry wrote to us asking to send him _food_. How is that safe?"

"Hermione –"

"You _listen_. He never had pictures of his mum and dad. He has never visited their graves. He has never had his birthday celebrated properly." Her voice was soft, choked with emotion for her friend who, at this moment, was still waiting for them in Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.

"I know, Hermione," said Remus. "It should have been Sirius."

" _It should have been you_!" said Hermione, and now she was almost shouting. "You were their friend. You weren't the one in Azkaban, or the one everyone thought was dead. And with the war over, you weren't risking your life every day. It should have been you."

"Hermione!" said Remus, a little shocked and sharper than he'd expected. "I thought you were the clever one. You know it would have been completely impossible."

"Yes, I _know._ He was little, and you have a furry little problem," she snapped. "So what? You're still human ninety-five percent of the time, that's more than the Dursleys have going for them. Other parents have date nights, you have… wolf nights. Shut up and _get a babysitter_."

The outburst left them both silenced for a moment. Remus wondered whether it was worth the effort to be offended. But then, Hermione was only drawing conclusions from the world as it presented itself to her. She read it like a book.

But as they had determined, some books lied.

He suddenly started laughing. He couldn't help himself, it just started pouring out, like when they'd been school boys, playing truth or dare. He hadn't spent so much time with his head in the past since… well, since it had been the past.

"What's so funny?" asked Hermione suspiciously.

"Nothing much," said Remus, when he could finally trust his voice again, "it's just, that's almost exactly what James told Sirius. When he first asked him to be godfather. Sirius wasn't… well, he wasn't immediately sold on the idea, so James said, _Shut up and raise my kid, you wanker_."

He saw Hermione mouthing the word _wanker_ before she said, "Sirius, too? Could no-one be bothered to step up and do the right thing?"

Remus became serious in a heartbeat. Hermione didn't know. She truly didn't know what it had been like. No reason to lash out, even though the wolf really wanted to.

Might be a teaching opportunity, though. He went for it.

"Do your parents know you're here?" he inquired mildly.

It had been a guess, though a good one, he realised as he watched the guilt flicker across her face. He knew where it hurt.

"You can be _such_ a bastard," Hermione said. "You know what, you're right. Maybe you really shouldn't take care of –"

He launched another shot in the dark. "So you understand," said Remus, "that sometimes, doing the right thing can look indistinguishable from doing the wrong thing, to everyone, and especially to you."

"They're not kids," she protests. "They're grown-ups, they're _dentists_ , they can build a new life and be happy, and _safe_ , in Australia, with no war and no Death Eaters and no bloody Voldemort. And they won't – they won't ever have to miss me. If something happens."

Remus had to admit to himself that he was impressed, if a little appalled. Memory charms were far beyond even N.E.W.T. level. He even remembered signing a petition against their non-consensual use, years back.

"Did you ask them if that's what they wanted?" he inquired.

"They wouldn't have agreed," said Hermione. "They didn't understand – they never understood –" She swallowed visibly. "I never told them half of what happened at Hogwarts. I was too scared they wouldn't let me go back."

"Then you have treated them like little kids for years," said Remus. "And now you go through this without guidance. In a way, you're as much of an orphan as Harry is."

Her eyes glittered in the dark. " _It's not the same damn thing_ ," she said. "You abandoned a _child_."

"I'm not asking you for a justification for what you did," said Remus softly. "I don't have to, because you're clever. You already know the holes in your argument. Yes, your parents would be in terrible danger right now if they were here. But it would be insincere to ignore the fact that you robbed them of their fundamental right to decide their own fate."

Hermione took a step back. "Are you saying I should let them perish in this war?" she said.

"No," said Remus. "I'm saying that in sometimes, it's impossible to get it right. Sometimes everything you can do is just a different shade of wrong. And you can't prepare for all eventualities."

"Watch me," said Hermione coolly. "Let's start preparing for the most pressing one. Ready to fly?" With these words, she dug out a key from the pocket of her trousers.

He inclined his head. "Be my guest."

Hermione turned and marched towards the shed door, apparently determined not to continue this particular argument.

The Weasleys' broomstick shed turned out to be surprisingly well-organised. Whether that was because the Weasley family took Quidditch seriously, or whether Molly Weasley had anticipated that her wedding guests would spend significant time in there, was unclear.

He dug out a battered Cleansweep Seven and handed an elderly Nimbus Nineteen Eighty-Four to Hermione, who held it at arm's length.

"Follow me," he said. "There's a designated landing corridor near the perimeter –"

"I _know_ –"

" – where we'll be concealed until we reach cloud level."

" _Cloud level_?" said Hermione with what might have been a squeak.

He shrugged. "Ottery St. Catchpole is a Muggle settlement," he said. "Best follow the law as long as it still exists."

"O-kay," she said.

They were walking to the back of the garden as Remus picked up their previous conversation. "Yes, Sirius hesitated at the time. He was twenty," he said. "And he was risking his life every day in a war that didn't look like it would be over any time soon."

"Like this one," said Hermione.

"Trust me, it hasn't even started," said Remus. "Sirius pretended – we all pretended – that we weren't scared, that nothing was of consequence. We could do what we did because we knew there'd be no family grieving by our grave. Because the only people that mattered were in there with us, and we'd go down," here, he hesitated, " _together_."

He didn't have to look at her to know she was seething. "And you have the _nerve_ to tell me what I did to my parents was wrong," she said.

"I didn't," said Remus. They'd reached the spot, and he surveyed the sky. Nice and cloudy. On the ground, the air was thick, unmoving, but all could change when they'd ascended.

"But that's what you think," she probed.

He looked at her. "Yes, I do," he said simply. "But what I'm saying is that I understand why you chose this. It was the same in 1980. Family made it real. _Harry_ made it real. Making arrangements in case our best friends died – it was what turned the war from bad to unbearable."

A gesture of his hand had the Cleansweep spring to life beside him.

"Anyway," he added, "Sirius changed his tune when he saw Harry for the first time, so there's that. He became different. More careful. Thank god, or he'd have died three different times before he turned twenty-one." He grinned slightly. "Including, as I recall, by crashing a broom into the side of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Ready?"

"So that's why you never made contact," said Hermione, observing the waiting broomstick. Her Nimbus, he saw, was still clutched in her hands. "Even if you couldn't have taken Harry, you never checked on him to make sure he was okay. You were scared you'd realise you were wrong, didn't you?"

"I wasn't wrong," said Remus. "I never doubted that." Then, with some finality, he added, "But you're right. I was worried I'd change my mind."

With a nod at her still inactive broom, he added, "You'll have to start it, Hermione."

He watched as she lay it on the ground, stretched out her hand, and said, in a firm voice, "Up". It was a painful reminder of first year flying lessons.

The broom wasn't doing anything.

"Up," she said. " _Up_. I'm sorry," she said, looking up, "I'll have it in a minute. I got it to work once. Back in first year. … I'm going to die tomorrow, aren't I."

"All broomsticks manufactured after nineteen fifty-four are enchanted with a form of non-sentient telepathy," said Remus conversationally.

"Oh god," said Hermione. "That really explains rather a lot. It can tell I'm –"

"Scared, yes," said Remus. "It's a safety feature. Can you try to be less scared?"

"I _am_ trying," said Hermione impatiently. "Sorry, I can't really get the words 'cloud' and 'level' out of my head. What now?"

"I'll take you up," Remus decided. "Hold on to that one –" he pointed to the Nimbus – "and I'll demonstrate another handy safety feature once we're there."

Hermione seemed rather relieved until he mounted the Cleansweep Seven and motioned her to sit down behind him. She looked from him to the Nimbus in her hand, then quickly conjured something that looked like a guitar strap. The Nimbus slung diagonally over her back, she climbed on awkwardly behind him.

"Hold on," he said.

"To what?" she managed to get out before he kicked off from the ground.

Remus had a hand on his wand in case he needed to levitate her, but the surprisingly strong grip around his waist told him she had better flying instincts then she let on.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	2. Chapter 2

Up they went.

"Lesson one," he shouted as soon as she had stopped screaming. "Swallow. Gets rid of the pressure in your ears."

"I've flown before, you know," she shouted back breathlessly. "On a plane. Inside of. Cushy seat. Mixed nuts. Like a normal person."

"And?"

" _I hated it_!"

They reached the clouds. Far below, the bright spot they knew as the Weasleys' festively illuminated garden vanished from view as thick, wet fog surrounded them from all sides.

"Lesson two," he shouted. "Clouds."

"I noticed!" Hermione shouted back. "What about them?"

"They're really, really wet."

She leant forward. "Thank you for pointing it out ," she half grumbled, half yelled into his ear.

He eased up on the acceleration when they emerged from the clouds, and brought the broom to a smooth stop. Up here, it was noticeably cooler than on the ground, and the wind had picked up by rather a lot. He found the breeze rather refreshing.

"Any thoughts so far?" he said.

"Depends," said Hermione. "Do I have to open my eyes?"

"Just imagine you're chased by sixteen Death Eaters while disguised as _Harry Potter_ ," said Remus. "You'll find you might want to, yes."

"Point taken," said Hermione. "Just give me a – wow."

Above them, the unfiltered Milky Way stretched across the sky, a billion friendly light waves from aeons past. Below, ghostly white clouds were swirling slowly.

"I like the clouds," said Hermione, still out of breath, "and that we can't see the ground from here," said Hermione. Her death grip on Remus relaxed somewhat.

"You are a poet, Hermione," said Remus, with a grin. "What do you think? A few rounds to get a feel for this?"

"Sure," said Hermione. "Oh, bother! Is this lesson three?" she added, as generous amounts of her bushy hair flapped around in the wind. "I'll definitely bring a hair-tie tomorrow."

"Good thinking," said Remus, who was valiantly trying to ignore the tickling assault of strange hair on his person.

He set off in a vaguely southern direction, at high speed towards the distant sea. Hermione yelped and held on to him. She was tense against his back, her arm tight around him.

High time to practise multi-tasking, he thought. He returned to their previous conversation.

"You realise Albus would never have allowed it," he shouted over the roaring wind. "Me adopting Harry, I mean."

There was a pause. Presumably, Hermione was sorting out her vocal chords.

Then: "I don't see how he had any legal right to decide Harry's guardianship," she said into his ear.

"Oh, he didn't," shouted Remus. "But have you tried defying his will?"

"Has anyone?" said Hermione. "Ever?"

"I can think of at least one," he said. It was a good question, though.

Also: "Prepare for sharp right turn, then left, then right and up."

There was frustrated silence behind him as Hermione held on for dear life.

He decelerated for a bit. "Good job shifting your weight," said Remus. "The next turns will be unannounced."

"Of course they will," said Hermione.

The wind was slightly calmer now they had slowed down. "The reason we haven't all been obliterated in 1981," said Remus, "is precisely because Albus spent so much time operating outside of the law. The Ministry wasn't effective. Not when the very structure of our society had enabled Voldemort's rise."

She didn't say anything. Maybe this was too complex a topic to discuss with a flying novice a mile up in the air, but when he turned around briefly, she merely looked at him questioningly.

"Azkaban," he said. "Half-breed registries. The Sacred Twenty-Eight. It wasn't a war against Voldemort, it was a war against ourselves." He dropped into the clouds. "And we were losing."

Remus implemented a handful of increasingly unpredictable manoeuvres: turns, drops, steep ascents, noting with satisfaction that Hermione was gaining confidence. Or at least, she wasn't screaming anymore.

"You're saying Dumbledore got used to it?" she said after a few minutes of this.

Gradually, Remus brought the broom to a standstill in mid-air somewhere over south Devon.

"You're thinking a hundred years too late," he said quietly. "Dumbledore has always operated independent of the Ministry."

"You mean he never broke the law, unless it disagreed with him," she said. "Isn't that what dictators do?"

"He never broke the law," he said, "unless he was convinced he was in the right. Make of that what you will."

He remembered painfully that both his attending Hogwarts, and returning as a teacher, would never have been approved by the Ministry. If Dumbledore had any dictator-like qualities, then he himself had benefitted from them, and shouldn't be quick to judge.

"You know," said Hermione now, "I think I'm really starting to get a feel for this –"

"Great," said Remus. "Hold on tight."

"What the – are you crazy – turn this thing around _right now_!" she shouted into his ear.

His response was a sort of mixture between shrug and laugh as, upside down, the broom picked up speed.

"What's the most difficult spell you know?" he shouted over the rushing wind. Hermione was valiantly trying to hit him while clinging both to him and to the broomstick.

"The Patronus, of course," she shouted.

"Great," he replied. "Do one."

" _Are. You. Out. Of. Your. Mind_ ," she shouted as they went right into the clouds and the stars disappeared from view.

"You realise the Death Eaters might bring Dementors tomorrow," shouted Remus. "Just imagine there's a nice big fat one right behind you."

"Piss off, Lupin," she shouted. "I don't have a hand free!"

"Yes you do!"

"I'll fall!"

"No, you won't," he shouted. "Harry does this sort of thing all the time, and you're cleverer than him, aren't you?"

Hermione said something in his ear that he could have sworn wasn't in her vocabulary. Then her death grip on him loosened as she carefully extracted her wand from her belt.

It took a couple of tries, but then a beautiful silvery otter soared through the air, racing across the imaginary plain of the stars below towards the horizon, before returning and riding alongside them for a minute before it dissipated into the clouds. In its presence, Hermione was notably less agitated.

All right, then. Maybe it was time to stop torturing her. He righted the broom and the world turned right side up, clouds below, stars above, where they belonged. Once again, he brought the broom to stand-still as they both caught their breath.

"Hermione, that was a perfect Patronus," he said.

"It was easy," said Hermione, securing her wand back in her belt. "All I had to do was imagine _slapping you across the face_."

He laughed. "Whatever works for you. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, still gulping for air. "Yeah. You mentioned a safety feature you were going to demonstrate. I figured there was no way I could actually fall. Right?"

"Um," he said.

" _Right_?"

"Give me the Nimbus," he said.

"No, really. Safety feature means I can't fall off the broom, right?"

"Hermione," he said. "How many times have you seen Harry –"

"Oh _god_ ," she said. She slowly unstrapped the Nimbus from her back and held it out to him.

"It just means the broom can't fall while you're _on_ it," he said. "I'll demonstrate."

He knew Hermione had realised what he was about to do when she said, "Please don't!"

He took the Nimbus, still inactive, and leaped off the Cleansweep they'd been riding, and onto the Nimbus.

Down he went, twenty feet, thirty, fast enough for a nice Doppler effect on Hermione's scream, and long enough that even he was starting to consider a nice levitation charm. Then, finally, the Nimbus's enchantment kicked in and he soared up again. He drew up alongside Hermione and stopped. _Thank you, James_ , he thought, _for this little trick_. He resisted the temptation to fix his hair.

"Are you okay steering this one down yourself?" he said.

"Lupin, you complete lunatic," she said, but he thought she definitely sounded a bit fonder than she had been a minute ago. "It's probably _safer_ if I do this myself. How does flying work again? Just pointing and thinking?"

"You are getting the hang of it," he said. "Would you like to practise dodging hexes on the way down?"

"Would you like to practise dodging hexes _right now_?" she said darkly. "Oh, all right, you old pedagogue."

They got down without further incidences. Hermione turned out to be superb at shield charms and counterhexes, and she wasn't even completely hopeless at dodging things on a broom. Still no Holyhead Harpy, he thought, but possibly Puddlemere United.

When they touched ground, the clouds of fireflies were still dancing from tree to shrub, from flowerpot to birdbath. There'd been a light rain in the meantime, and the grass under their feet was wet.

They put away the broomsticks in the shed and then Hermione was leaning against the door, taking deep breaths. She looked positively windswept. Remus wouldn't have thought it possible that her hair could appear any bigger, but as it turned out, he had been extremely wrong. Underneath that giant frizzy cloud Remus he saw, with a start, that she was shaking.

He felt too polite and a little too guilty to say anything.

"You know," she said, "I was never going to reveal this in front of a teacher, but can I have a cigarette?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I think I would be murdered both by Molly and Nymphadora," said Remus. "Speaking of whom –"

He peered towards the kitchen window, but neither his wife nor Molly Weasley had moved while they had gone.

"What _are_ they talking about?" said Hermione.

"You know how it is," he said with shrug. "Not many chances to just sit down and have a chat."

There was a dark feeling in the back of his head that told him he knew _exactly_ what they were talking about, and that he should probably start thinking about it, too, but he filed it away for now. There were more pressing matters.

"Anyway, if they want to murder you, they can gang up with Harry and Ron," said Hermione. "Well, Ron would just be bewildered, I should think. Harry would be all, _but Hermione, you'll need your cardiovascular fitness when we're on the run_."

He laughed. "Since when do you smoke?"

"Hogwarts prefect," she said with a conspiratorial smile. "Between O.W.L.s and Dolores Umbridge, the prefects all started smoking to cope with the stress. The Muggleborns, at least, I think the others just started twitching occasionally. So how about that cigarette?"

"I remember." Remus allowed himself a sardonic grin as he wrestled down his sense of responsibility, shook a cigarette out of his crumpled pack and lit it for his former student.

"See?" he said. "I would have been a _terrible_ guardian."

Staring him down, Hermione took a deep, practiced drag. "I need you to take this seriously," she said.

Such an odd addiction, smoking. He found it hard to watch Hermione with a cigarette in her hand without lighting another for himself. Sirius had always lit up after flying, he remembered.

"And will you do me the same courtesy?" he said.

"Of course," said Hermione. "What now? Is there a great explanation? What happened to you in the war that left you so –"

"So _what_ , Hermione?"

So _broken_ , was what Remus assumed Hermione was going to say before common sense caught up with her. "So ambivalent," she says eventually.

"It's neither great, nor is it an explanation," said Remus. "You came here for answers, and that is what you shall get. But you already know what happened in the war."

"I know what happened," said Hermione. "But I want to know – I need to know – what you did. Afterwards. How you lived."

He paused, cigarette halfway to his lips. And here he'd thought she'd merely come out to dissect his failings as a potential guardian.

He wondered if she realised it was the same question, worded differently. "Why?" he asked carefully.

"Because terrible things are going to happen, aren't they?" said Hermione softly. "And I need to know what to expect."

"Ah," he said. "Fair enough, I suppose."

Remus had some personal feelings on the matter that, upon closer examination, amounted to something not much more complex than _ignorance is bliss_ , but he didn't voice that thought.

Instead he watched Hermione, who was still leaning against the shed as if she couldn't stand on her own, and said, "Do you need to sit down?"

"You're still standing, old man," she said.

"Barely," he lied. "There's a bench over there, just try not to get any ash on the flowery… things."

He could hardly wrap his mind around a bench that looked out pf place anywhere _except_ at a wedding. It was white, with fake rambler roses wound around its spindly legs, looking thoroughly delicate. He imagined Hagrid sitting down on it, and snickered. Hermione sank into it thankfully enough, and he settled down next to her, taking a pensive drag.

"I met Petunia Dursley once," he said conversationally. "At James's and Lily's funeral."

That had been a bleak fucking day, the first of many. It was the day he'd realised. If all this had been a bad dream, then it had to be a mass hallucination, because two hundred people were crammed into a tiny church and he was suffocating in their shared, terrible grief. It hadn't been a good realisation, and he didn't remember thinking or saying anything that day that made any sense.

Funnily enough, Petunia Dursley hadn't taken to him.

"What did she do, complain about the flower arrangements?" said Hermione.

"You never met her, did you," said Remus. "She was being perfectly appropriate. She'd brought little Harry, and she even cried. She wasn't a monster, Hermione."

"Some abusers hide it really well," said Hermione.

"Not the ones I'd met," said Remus. "Remember, I was barely twenty-one myself. The only abusive parent I'd met was Sirius's mother, and she didn't hide it. She wasn't as loud or as crass as her portrait, at least not with outsiders. But every word out of her mouth was a carefully crafted attack, subtle enough that arguing back felt like needless escalation. It did your head in."

He remembered King's Cross. "Except for James," he added. "I think she basically adopted him into the family, he always got the best insults. She once called him a _despicable blood traitor not fit to lick the boots of a Black_ , right there on the train station."

"Charming," said Hermione.

"I think he replied something about licking whichever parts of Sirius he damn well chose, so there's that," said Remus. Hermione snickered.

"We made it into a competition," he continued. "In hindsight, this may have made things worse."

And wasn't that the understatement of the century, he remembered with a chill.

"Every time we spotted the Blacks at King's Cross," he said, "we bet who could draw the best insults from Mrs Black. Once, she called James a disgusting cretin, lowlife, _and_ plebeian, all in the same breath. I think it was around that time she had that portrait commissioned, actually."

"I must say that James Potter is quickly becoming my favourite Marauder," said Hermione. "Of course, there were the house-elves' heads in the stairwell. That should have tipped you off right away."

"Yes," said Remus. "You could never quite miss the fact there was something seriously wrong in that household. Petunia Dursley was different. She wasn't friendly, or fun, but you couldn't tell. Not from talking to her."

"Yes," said Hermione. "It all went on behind closed doors."

"But no-one could know that, at the time," said Remus. "The only objection I'd heard against the Dursleys was that they were Muggles. And that Muggles, of course, shouldn't be raising witches and wizards. My own mother was a Muggle, so you can imagine what I thought of that argument."

"Yes," said Hermione quietly.

"And after what was done to Harry in the wizarding world in his short life," said Remus, "I agreed with Albus. Maybe he really was better off with the Muggles. Maybe they could protect him. Hide him. And that part of the plan worked, didn't it? No-one in the Wizarding world knew where he was until he stepped foot in Diagon Alley. Not even ten years, and there were conspiracy theories going around, claiming he was fictional."

"Hm," said Hermione.

She had her wand out, absent-mindedly conjuring more of the tiny fireflies, following them with her eyes as they zoomed off into the dark.

"Remind me again how Sirius got out of that place?" she asked.

"Ran away," said Remus. "The summer after fifth year."

"Of course he did," said Hermione off-handedly.

"How do you mean?"

"I mean," she said, in an exasperated voice, "that he shouldn't have had to. It's all blood and family in this world, isn't it? It trumps even humanity. Why did no-one help Sirius before that summer? Why was Harry always sent back at the end of the year? What do children have to endure before the Ministry intervenes?"

"The Ministry won't," said Remus quietly. "And that is the end of it."

Despite everything, Hermione was still surprised. And angry. Bless her. "What, _never_?" she said.

"We don't have the tools to protect children but from the crassest forms of abuse," said Remus, purposefully disengaging his mind from that terrible summer after fifth year.

"There must be," Hermione insisted. "What about the law?"

"There have been numerous attempts to reform the law in the last hundred years," he said. "They all failed because the ancient houses resisted change. Their only counterweight is not the Ministry, it's Hogwarts. That's why Hogwarts' policies clash so often with the old families. Hogwarts is _meant_ to balance out their influence."

"What about Slytherin house?" said Hermione.

"Allowing the traditions of Slytherin house to continue is, I think, a compromise," said Remus. "This way, a Hogwarts education is held in high regard among the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and if there's one thing they love, it's tradition. Ironically, it's what's keeping many of these kids safe for a good part of the year who would otherwise be home-schooled."

"We-ell," said Hermione. "It's Hogwarts we're talking about."

"Monsters in the dungeons, biting textbooks, and a sport that's played on flying broomsticks," said Remus. "I see what you mean."

"Summing up," said Hermione. "The Ministry couldn't intervene, ever, and Hogwarts couldn't intervene until Harry was eleven, and even then he'd be on his own for the summer. That's _bleak_." Hermione looked as though she were taking mental notes for future petitioning.

"Back to the funeral," she added. "You let Petunia go with little Harry. How did he seem? Happy?"

Memories from that time were cumbersome to retrieve, but he tried his best. "Hard to say," said Remus. "He was a year old and their mood changes by the hour, does it not? He was covered in biscuit crumbs. Harry was a dear that day, though. Petunia seemed to have a bit of a protective streak – at least when it came to shielding him from wizards."

"You let them go," stated Hermione.

"Of course I let them go, it was all done by then," he said.

He closed his eyes, brutally aware that he was lying by omission. Petunia had tried to hand Harry over to him, and that was a sign that even his twenty-one year old self should have taken more seriously, if he hadn't been so caught up with himself.

"She seemed more capable than I was," he said, finally. "She had all this stuff. A giant tote bag full of things. Diapers, bottles, biscuits, spare clothes. She had a great big car. She looked put together, while I was tripping over my borrowed robes. She had not just survived a devastating war."

"And therefore, she wouldn't treat him like a living legend," said Hermione slowly. "Or like a memento of her dead best friends?"

He hesitated before nodded. "Yes," he said.

"Besides," he added, not wanting to lose momentum, because this was _it_ , this was painful, "I was arrested the day after the funeral."

"… _What_ ," said Hermione. "Why?"

He looked at her. "Why do you think?" he said. "It was the time of Barty Crouch, rising star in the Auror's office. He was cleaning up. Azkaban filled up with people like me so that the members of polite society could sleep better at night."

For a long while, she just stared at him. Then, something clicked.

"Of course," she said. "He thought you were in league with Sirius."

"Exactly," said Remus. "They said I'd be freed as soon as my innocence was proven, but… " he grimaced. "Evidence emerged and it all took a bit longer than it had to."

" _Evidence_?" said Hermione incredulously. "How on earth could there be evidence?"

"Think," said Remus. "Sirius thought I was the spy. For thirteen years, I thought it was a smoke-screen to hide his guilt, but in reality he was picking up on clues. Clues that had been carefully placed. Clues that all pointed in the same direction."

More silence. Eventually Hermione said, "That little _rat_."

"I think the endgame, for Peter," said Remus. "was to get rid of both of us, and if that didn't work – he knew I'd be fighting to prove Sirius's innocence. He wanted me unlikely to be believed."

"But you didn't fight in the first place, did you?"

He sighed. So much regret: No, he hadn't, and he could barely dredge up the energy to justify this. He had been so, so wrong.

"Hermione," he said. "Nothing – _nothing_ – divides a group like a lack of trust. Sirius acted strange around me for a year. Kept information from me, or gave me information that was just a bit off… In hindsight, he acted like a spy. And likewise, in hindsight, I returned the feeling. I didn't fight it, because _I believed he was guilty_. Because I believed that Peter was dead, and that Sirius had killed him."

He shook his head, but he may never get rid of the guilt. That he could have turned it around, if only - "That little rat was cleverer than all of us."

Then he looked at Hermione. "Whatever you do," he added, "do not underestimate that man. Sirius and I did. Worse, we did it twice. Well. Peter won't be so lucky a third time, will he?"

Hermione was quiet for a very long time.

"Have you ever killed someone?" she asked, finally.

"… Why are you asking?"

"In the Shrieking Shack," she said, "you looked ready to do it. So calm. So determined. Like you were dealing with nothing more than a Boggart, or… or a _rat_. Have you done it before?"

He breathed out. It _was_ a valid question, he reminded himself.

"Yes," he said simply. Another long pause. "But I have never been calm, or determined."

The first had been but a kid, a Death Eater initiate, standing over James Potter's unconscious body, on top of the cliffs of Bournemouth. Remus's stunning spell had sent him tumbling over the edge, where he'd broke his neck and died like a Muggle.

Remus hadn't wanted this. At least, the others had been older than him.

"You're scared," he observed.

"What if I have to?" she said tonelessly. "I don't want to kill anyone. What will I even be afterwards? I'm Hermione. I'm a book-worm and know-it-all. I don't _kill_ people. If I do, I'll be someone else, someone I'll hate –"

"Do you hate me?" he said. "Do you hate Albus Dumbledore? Alastor Moody? You'll find, when your loved ones are threatened, the choice is simple. Not easy, no. But in that moment, you will know what is right."

"You're such a … such a _teacher_ ," said Hermione with a hint of exasperation. "You're making it sound so easy. So doable. What about Pettigrew, then?"

Remus sighed. "You're such a _student_ , have I told you? Always finding the holes in the argument."

"Pettigrew wasn't threatening anyone in the Shrieking Shack," said Hermione. "He didn't even have a wand."

"And he had thoroughly demonstrated thirteen years before what would happen if we let him escape," said Remus. "He is the reason Harry doesn't have parents. He brought Voldemort back when he didn't have to. And he is why you're not going back to school in September. There can't be a next time. The rat has to go, Hermione, or this war will never be over."

"But you wanted revenge, too," she said. "You and Sirius. It wasn't about what was right, or simple, or whether your friends were threatened, or whether the world was about to change for the worse. You wanted revenge for all the pain he caused you."

There was nothing he could say to that. She was right. And the worst thing was: A part of him was still angry with Harry for not letting him go through with the murder.

He'd have been a terrible guardian, and he'd be a terrible parent.

"It's okay," said Hermione. "Remus, it's okay. You're only human."

"So is Pettigrew," said Remus softly, "and look what he did." He shook his head, trying to get it clearer. He was supposed to give answers. Answers were supposed to be simpler than the questions that prompted them.

"Seems like it was only yesterday I had you in my class," he said. "You were explaining all about Boggarts."

"Such a privilege to examine our worst fears in the safety of a classroom." She smiled, briefly, remembering. "Back to Azkaban," she said.

"You're still not done here?" he asked.

"You can't just drop the fact that you were arrested for conspiring with Sirius Black and leave me hanging," she said. "What happened? How did you get out? Don't tell me it took years for you, too."

"Those days were only the beginning of the great cleanse," said Remus. "Which was good, because Crouch learned to make his cases more waterproof later on. It was all very chaotic, from what I heard. Trials were suspended. Paperwork was a mess. Albus Dumbledore came blazing in when he heard, but by then, it had been three weeks."

"Nice to hear he bothered for once," said Hermione. "What happened after? You were free, your name was cleared. Harry, of course, was settled in with the Dursleys. What did you do? No desire to check on him, to put things right?"

"That again," said Remus, with a grim laugh. Her steadfast conviction that he could have walked straight up to number four, Privet Drive, pick up Harry and give him a loving home was starting to grate on him.

"Use your imagination, Hermione," he said. "I left Azkaban for St. Mungo's, and it wasn't until New Year's Eve that I was released."

"What happened?" asked Hermione. "Did the Dementors –"

"What always happens," said Remus. "Every month, without fail. The moon."

* * *

 _To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione's mouth formed a silent 'o' as it dawned on her.

"Only this time, in Azkaban," continued Remus, "the wolf was trapped, and scared, and lonely – well, you met him. The wolf is not a thinker, Hermione. He wanted out, picked a fight with the walls, broke half the bones in my body. Didn't stick around for the fun part, the coward."

Years back, during their Patronus lessons, Harry had asked – rather shyly, for him - what Remus remembered when the Dementors came close.

Fair question, he'd thought, given what Harry had shared with him about his parents. Fortunately, he'd remembered he was a teacher, and Harry was thirteen, and boundaries existed for a reason. _A number of things_ , he'd replied, and left it at that, because all of those things were fundamentally tied to what he was (Greyback. The first night alone in the Shack. Sixth year), and who he had been to Harry's parents (the ruined cottage in Godric's Hollow). And they hadn't been there yet, he and Harry.

He hadn't told Harry any of this, and he sure as hell wasn't going to tell Hermione any of the details. But on the train to Hogwarts, with his head too full of memories and his defences still dulled from sleep, this was what the Dementor in their compartment had brought up: Azkaban after the moon.

He'd broken bones before. But he'd never just lain on the floor for days, injured, fading, trying to hide. Let his mind diffuse into sleep, he'd prayed, or death, let his skinny body slip into the cracks between the flagstones.

No such mercy. In the aftermath of the moon, the Dementors had flocked to him like vultures to roadkill. Skeletal hands closing around his neck and wrists, pushing down against broken ribs until he gasped for air, dragging mouldering fabric over his raw skin, rotting grey fingers probing, prying, tracing the new gashes left by the wolf. A bodily mockery of happier memories.

He'd thought about distances, then. Just inches from his face was a mouth, breath on his face like the air from inside a tomb. Hundreds of miles away was the Ministry's questionable control over them, and in-between, _still_ , in the middle of it all: Sirius, two storeys and six doors away, who would know whether this was a dream, or whether they were truly this _real_ , this bodily, and no-one had warned him because no-one sane would let them get that close.

 _No difference, mate_ , Sirius'd say. _They're in your head. They've got all of you_.

But then, so many of the horrors he'd known were physical. It made sense his Dementors were, too. He'd witnessed the memories seep out from him, soaked up by that perpetual, depraved hunger, and what was left felt tainted, poisoned, foul. Outside the bars, the moon shone on, fat but waning, every passing hour chopping off another sliver.

Three days of this, like even Christ himself had had to endure. Only Remus hadn't managed to save anyone.

"Shit," said Hermione emphatically, and he realised he hadn't talked in a while.

"It's not," he stated, "a _furry little problem_."

He had asked himself so many times what it would take to get his friends take the wolf seriously. His friends hadn't. His wife certainly didn't. Maybe this was the story to tell, if he could ever bring himself to tell it again.

"But surely that was an exception," said Hermione bravely. "That was Azkaban. The wolf was scared, you said it yourself."

"Remember your third year?" said Remus. "There I was, been transforming since I was four, castle full of children, and I forget – _forget_ – about the full moon. Was that an exception, too?"

"Just after figuring out that Pettigrew was alive and Sirius had been innocent the whole time," said Hermione. "If that wasn't an exception –"

"It was certainly educational," said Remus. "It taught me that, after all these years, there are still circumstances where I can just _forget_. And even if I never make a mistake again, then Sirius's prank in sixth year taught me that I will never be able to prevent other people's stupidity. How many exceptions does it take, Hermione?"

"All of them, if you learn from them," she said stubbornly. "Neville's Great Uncle Algie dropped him out of a second-floor window when he was eight. The Malfoys sold their son to Voldemort in exchange for their sorry lives. It seems to me that, just by virtue of doubting yourself occasionally, you'd be a better -"

"I'm willing to accept the proposition that I'd out-parent the Malfoys," said Remus drily.

"Oh, you are _so_ –"

She didn't complete that sentence, but when he offered her the pack of cigarettes again, she took one. He'd have to buy new ones tomorrow, he reminded himself. In case they survived the Harry Potter extraction, that was.

Hermione leant forward, head in her hands, thinking, or despairing. Probably wondering if this was her future, this bleakness, this loss. He had to remind himself that it was his past.

"How was it, being the only one left?" she asked finally.

"You really are preparing for all eventualities, are you," he said.

"… Have to," said Hermione. "I'm not stupid. I know there's a good chance not all of us are going to survive this, and -"

She paused, then picked up again. "I don't believe in prophecies, but Voldemort seems to, so there's that. I don't _know_ if Harry is meant to live, even if we win. It's like all he's ever done, his whole life, was in preparation for this. The endgame. He's the brave one. And Ron, Ron has so much to prove. There'll be grand gestures, there will be stupid risks, there will be improvisation, every rational fibre in my body is stressed already. And me?"

"Someone has to be the clever one," said Remus.

"Sure," said Hermione. "I'll do the thinking. I'll be clever. I'll stick to the plan. If any one of us is going to survive without the others, it will be me. But you know what that's like, don't you?"

"You can't prepare for everything, Hermione," he said gently.

"Not with that attitude, no," said Hermione. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be snippy. I've got to know, Remus. I've got to know what to expect. I'm sorry. It's painful, but please. _Help me_."

"Well then," said Remus. "It's shit. But you're clever, you know that."

"… I was hoping for more details than that," said Hermione. "I'll need to know how to –"

"You realise this is rather personal," he pointed out, just in case Hermione had missed the fact at any time during the last hour or so.

"Every tragedy is personal," said Hermione. "And every tragedy is pointless. Unless it can help someone else. Right?"

Remus sighed. His wife, in the brightly lit kitchen, still didn't look as if she was about to come save him. And in any case, they were already nearly there, at the heart of it all. He might as well.

And of course, there was the chance that there had been a point to all this. That this might truly help Hermione.

"Where were we?" he said.

"New Year's Eve," said Hermione. "1981."

"1982," he started, "was, on the whole, not much better. Same bleak shit, only the celebrations had fizzled out by then. They were rounding up the last of the Death Eaters. Closing missing person cases. Pretending everything was normal. They came down vicious on Voldemort's supporters, and everyone they thought was in league with them."

"Werewolves?"

"Yes," he said. "They've always been bastards about werewolves, but now they got out the bureaucracy and that really made things tedious. Registration laws. Supervised transformation in Ministry facilities. Not only that, they were discussing taking our wands away, too, like they had with house-elves and goblins. Put a trace on us, have our movements tracked."

"That is entirely illegal –" Hermione started.

"That's just what Muggleborns like you are facing if the Death Eaters win," said Remus. "I tried to slip through the cracks best as I could, but it was getting harder, and I cared less and less."

"Only the Death Eaters hadn't won," said Hermione.

"No," said Remus. "We. _We_ won, at great cost. But this – this didn't feel like victory."

"Weren't there others?" said Hermione. "Others you could talk to?"

Marlene McKinnon, he thought. Dorcas Meadowes. Edgar Bones, Benjy Fenwick. Alice Longbottom. The list was too long.

He supposed there had been others, at the time. But when he tried to remember it, all that came to mind was prying eyes, helpless silence, pity. He'd never been sure what was worse: That someone didn't understand what he was going through – or that they did. He never knew how to respond to either.

"I wasn't feeling it," said Remus.

"You were depressed," said Hermione.

He laughed. "Oh, come on now, Hermione. Depression is for Muggles."

"If by that you mean that it's not taken seriously in the wizarding world -" said Hermione.

He sighed. "Of course I mean that," he said. "I hide truths inside technicalities, haven't you noticed?"

"You didn't get help," she concluded. "You couldn't."

"And what was the point?" said Remus. "It wasn't going to bring them back. Worse, me being happy felt like -"

"Like a betrayal," supplied Hermione. He wondered how she did it. How she could identify this choking guilt from the sparse information he provided. This resentment he had felt towards a life he didn't even want anymore and yet continued to live, while James and Lily lay dead in their graves, their only son abandoned by everyone they'd called friends.

"Yes," said Remus. "Happiness was a betrayal. _Living_ was a betrayal. It wasn't how we had thought it'd go down. We thought we'd do this together."

"You tried to kill yourself," said Hermione simply.

Of course she'd get there, he thought. It was but the logical end of the story he'd told. Funnily enough, it didn't feel invasive, coming from her. It felt like affirmation. It hadn't just been his sad and tired mind, half a lifetime ago.

That scared him. She shouldn't be able to understand. No-one her age should.

Remus grimaced. "It's the eve of a new war," he said. "One would think you'd be looking for motivation. Look elsewhere. It was not a good time."

She was silent, just watched, and he found he couldn't do it. Couldn't tell a comfortable lie, something that'd make her go into war with her head held high. She had to understand there was a price to pay.

"I was beyond trying," he said. "I was done. I was reckless. Walked London at midnight without my wand, picked fights with junkies. Lost. Let drunks in bars pick fights with me. Lost those, too. Crossed so many streets without looking. Didn't eat for a week before the moon, and the wolf was _pissed_. But he never killed me, and I never did, either."

"I'm glad," she said earnestly. "What then? How are you still here? What happened after 1982?"

"You wouldn't guess from knowing me then, but," said Remus, "1983. Then 1984. And so on. I was surprisingly busy. Had a few jobs here and there. Dumbledore sent me on a handful of missions. I could look up into the night sky without looking for _him_. I didn't heal. I just sat very quietly and let time move me away from it all. Eventually, the pain became just another old friend I never talked to anymore."

He looked directly into her eyes. "In case it isn't incredibly obvious," he added, "when dealing with depression, this is not an approach I recommend. But you know what they say about hindsight."

"So it was always impossible, finding a job?" said Hermione. "Even before Umbridge, I mean. You are one of the cleverest people I know."

"A mystery, isn't it?" said Remus. "The jobs I wanted all came with thorough background checks, this short after the war. The jobs I didn't want but needed still came with the expectation to turn up every day. But you know what that's like, Hermione, don't you? To be the cleverest witch in your year and still –"

"Yes," said Hermione. "Somehow it's still not enough, because O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s don't weigh up blood."

"Yes, I remember your Boggart," said Remus. "Hard to ever be good enough when the cards are stacked against you."

"But you found a job, eventually," said Hermione.

"Oh, I found so many," said Remus. "Could never stay long, see. Did some contracting work here and there. Cleaned up infestations, mostly. Crime scenes. Protective enchantments. Kept the defence skills sharp, at least."

"Finally," said Hermione. "An explanation for the Boggarts. I was wondering."

"And Redcaps. And Grindylows. And a number of pests not suitable for a third year classroom," said Remus. "I also tutored a handful of Pureblood brats during the summers, but the longest employment I had was six months in a second hand bookshop. It was heaven. Sold Sartre and Marx to university kids and read my way through the collected works of William Shakespeare."

"You like books, do you," said Hermione.

He was surprised. "Who doesn't?"

Hermione laughed. "I swear, Remus, if you were twenty years younger –" Hermione's hand flew to her mouth.

He paused. "And the whole being married bit doesn't deter you at all?"

"It does deter me a lot," said Hermione. "I just have a Pavlovian response to declarations of book love. It'll pass in a minute."

"I'm not that old, by the way," said Remus mildly. "Gilderoy Lockhart is what, four whole years younger than me? And that never stopped you."

Predictably. Hermione was slightly offended. "That was in _second_ year, and people are still bringing it up!" she said. "How did _you_ even know?"

"Staff room," said Remus simply.

"… I should have known gossip goes both ways," said Hermione. "Who told you?"

"Why, your esteemed professor of Muggle Studies, Charity Burbage, of course," said Remus. "First day, she looked me up and down, and said 'Thank God you're not a pretty boy like the last one.' Said I looked like I was into grunge and if I could explain flannel to her."

Hermione laughed. "That year, she played Pearl Jam and Nirvana for us, in the section on contemporary Muggle culture," she said. "I think she just liked guitars, she had about six."

"Oh, _that_ explains the grunge comment," said Remus. "I think I looked very offended, because she took me out for hot chocolate."

Hermione giggled. "Not Madame Puddifoot's, surely?"

"The very same," said Remus. "Neither of us had ever been and we were morbidly curious. The musical sugar bowls were fascinating and Charity thought the floating kiss cam was genius – if your ambition is to ruin the budding relationships of fourteen-year-olds, that is."

"Oh, I forgot about the kiss cam," said Hermione. "Have you noticed it starts hitting you over the head if you're not snogging within twenty minutes?"

"How would I know?" he said innocently, then laughed. "Personally, I'm not convinced the novelty of the place is worth the diabetic coma. _Or_ the traumatic brain injury, thank you, it was a joke. Anyway, over said hot chocolate, Charity mentioned she was looking forward to teaching a class without having to confiscate terrible love poems to the dashing Defence teacher."

"And you were even more offended?"

"Deeply." Remus smiled. "That she thought me unworthy of poetry such as, _Oh, those cascades of wavy golden hair / I want to brush it right then and there / Oh, those eyes of lapis lazuli / I can't think of a rhyme for lapis lazuli / Life is hell."_

"…I _swear_ that wasn't me," said Hermione.

"Thought so. Yours would have had better spelling," he said. "Charity had a whole collection, recited them on pub nights."

He saw the look on her face. "Yes, we had pub nights. How did you think we could deal with the lot of you every day?"

Hermione was still trying, and failing, to hold back laughter.

"Hah, joke's on her," she said. "Mandy Brocklehurst fancied you. So did Sue Li. Padma Patil. Anthony Goldstein. And that's just my year."

"…Jesus, that's a lot of Ravenclaws," said Remus.

"What can I say, they like nerds," said Hermione. "At least Ravenclaws are clever enough not to leave written evidence."

Then she became serious. "Have you seen the note in the Daily Prophet today? That Professor Burbage resigned from teaching?"

"Something tells me it wasn't voluntary," said Remus grimly. "Don't worry just yet, Hermione," he added. "Chances are, someone warned her not to come back. She's probably out there somewhere with her six guitars and metric ton of Muggle detective stories. The Order will track her down."

"I hope you do," said Hermione, then drew herself together. "Okay, Muggle bookshop. What are we up to, mid-eighties? What changed?"

Still on a mission, then. He couldn't help but admire a mind that organised. "What makes you think anything changed?" he said.

"You, now," said Hermione, and counted it out on her fingers: "Mild mannered, tea-drinking, aging bachelor. Hogwarts teacher. Badass Order agent. Respectably married. Patronuses left and right. You didn't get there by sitting still and ignoring everything. What happened to picks-fights-with-junkies?"

"Oh, that," said Remus. He grimaced. Part of that very persona Hermione had laid out was not admitting to weakness, but they'd come this far, and, he repeated himself, if it helped, it had to be worth this terrible trip down memory lane.

"Two things, actually," he said. "One, since I was working for Muggles, I had to get a national insurance number, and the lady who owned the shops encouraged me to seek therapy."

It was clear that this wasn't what Hermione had expected. "How did that work out?"

"Well, I lied a lot," said Remus. "Had to, the therapist was a Muggle, so I told her stories that she could follow and that wouldn't get me committed. Magic is just a detail, after all."

He'd liked how the therapist hadn't got hung up on Greyback, his Muggle pendant anyway – _There's two things in this world you can't change, lad, and that's the past and other people. Now tell me five things you can do this week that'll make you smile._ He'd appreciated the pragmatism. He did the five things. He made it to next week.

"But depression is what it is," he added. "The NHS is what it is. Therapy didn't fix me, but it was way beyond what St. Mungo's had to offer on the subject."

Hermione snorted. "Cheering Charms and Dreamless Sleep potions?"

"Exactly." He smiled. "Two, in 1987, Dumbledore sent Emmeline Vance and me on an assignment to Azkaban."

"Bet you were overjoyed," said Hermione.

"Not as much as Emmeline," said Remus. "After seeing my Patronus at work, she refused to take me unless I could conjure a perfect Patronus with a second's warning, no matter if drop-down drunk or just woken up. She actually moved in with me. Wore a creepy black hooded robe of her grandma's and kept surprising me in all sorts of circumstances. Did you know how many shots of Firewhiskey it takes for your Patronus to get tipsy?"

"Always the scientific method," said Hermione, giggling. "… Emmeline Vance, Remus?"

Oh lord, grant him patience. "That is not the story I am telling right now," he said.

"Forgive a girl for getting curious," said Hermione. "It's all one story, anyway, isn't it? I just hate missing bits."

He sighed. "Remember what I told you about there being more things on God's green earth than just gay or straight? Because Emmy was pretty damn gay."

Hermione, however, was learning fast. "Are you perhaps hiding the truth inside a technicality again?" she said.

He raised his hands as a sign he declined to comment, and Hermione smirked out of what was by now, probably, habit, but the expression was edged with frustration. But then, she didn't have to know everything.

1987 had been full of exceptions, and Emmeline Vance'd had nearly as many scars as he had. If he had to be anyone's drunk mistake, being Emmeline's was an honour.

"My second visit to Azkaban," he said after a while, "couldn't have been more different. And it wasn't Azkaban that had changed. It was still a place where happiness came to die. But I was in control. I learned that the same memories that had once made me vulnerable now made me invincible. I could pull them up, turn them into a space where Dementors could not exist. And when it was done, I could tidy them away. More than any other spell or charm, mastering the Patronus truly changes you."

"How so?" said Hermione.

"Your sense of self, your present, your past," he said. "It becomes more connected. It changes the way you remember."

"Harry said something similar once," said Hermione. "I didn't notice anything." She sounded disappointed she'd somehow missed a learning opportunity.

"For some of us, the change is more apparent," said Remus. "Memories have utility now. You take them out to protect you against the darkness. Or to learn from them. To see how far you've come."

She thought about this. "Or to help others?"

"That is the point of this exercise, is it?" said Remus. "And most importantly, you put your memories away when you're done. You stop dwelling, because it weakens them. You collect new memories instead."

"That just sounds like healing," said Hermione.

" _Just_ ," said Remus with a thin smile. "It was time, don't you think?"

Something inside him resisted telling her the details, because happiness, to him, had always felt private, especially in those years when everyone had lost so much. It was unfair, because if he warned her about the bad things, then she needed to hear the good things, too, without that protective layer of abstraction.

So he drew a deep breath and told her about the trip back from Azkaban.

They'd crossed the North Sea on a fishing boat, he and Emmeline Vance and the two men they'd saved from a terrible fate in prison. Halfway across, with the Scottish town of Wick just becoming visible on the horizon, she'd called him to the bow, where she stood, straight-backed and serious, braving the wind and the surf and the bloody October rain as if it existed on a lesser plane of existence.

 _This is my favourite bit_ , she'd shouted over the noise.

 _Which bit_? he'd said.

 _Wait for it_ , she'd replied.

Moments later, it hit him. The pressure on his mind lifted as behind them, Azkaban and all the horrors it contained dropped off the edge of the sea. But this time, something came flooding back into the void, something that hadn't been there in a long time.

Happiness. Hope. A sense of future.

 _The misery horizon_ , she'd said.

 _I didn't notice that when we came here_ , he'd said.

 _Because you were already miserable_ , she'd replied. _The way back is different. Like you finally get a break from all the -_ She had turned to him then. _I know what it's like_ , she'd said, and he'd been thankful for the rain on his face, and they'd held on to each other for a long time.

It had been gone by the next morning, but it had left a message, a memory, a perspective: That this was possible – that he was, in fact, still capable of feeling happiness, hope; hell, anything but perpetual misery, that he was not as broken as he'd thought. That maybe he could be okay.

 _The way back is different._

"She sounds remarkable," said Hermione.

"She was," he said shortly, and they were both silent for a moment. Emmeline Vance had been murdered a year ago.

"You know how to conjure a Patronus," he said finally. "You learned the value of memories much earlier than I did. Memories are not the enemy. Not even happy memories. Not even when they're over. Not even when what you remember will never come back. But you have to handle them with care."

He sighed. "If I could give you just two pieces of advice, then, the first is this: Hold on to what makes you happy. Keep your friends by your side. Don't be alone. And if, God forbid, you _do_ end up alone, remember your friends well, because they deserve it. You deserve it. But don't dwell, and don't become stationary."

"And the second?"

" _Don't_ end up alone," said Remus. "Don't be the last to die, it's shit. See? I'd be a terrible guardian."

"I'm starting to see it," said Hermione. "Not that you'd have been terrible. Just how impossible the whole situation was. I'm sorry, Remus."

He stubbed out his cigarette. "Here's the truth as I know it," he said softly. "Memories aren't enough. You'll need to move on eventually, or they will drown you."

Well then, he thought. That had been the story, in almost its entirety, and almost entirely truthful. Just one fact left to set right, but that was the hardest.

"I regret not taking Harry," he said, not looking at her. "With what I know now. He's grown up and he's okay, but he deserved so much better. The fact that history proved me right – that it would have in fact been impossible – doesn't change that. I was wrong not to try. And Harry suffered because of me."

Silence. Then Hermione said, "You know he'd never ask for an apology. He never asked for anything."

"It's good that he has you to fight some of his battles," he said. "But I'm not asking for forgiveness. Just – possibly – an opportunity to make up for it."

At this, a strange, daring idea made its presence known, but he willed it away. It was idiotic, and, he knew in the back of his head, untimely, and there was this other thing he needed to think about first, if he ever got a quiet minute to himself.

"You know, with everything progressing the way it does, I have a feeling one will come," said Hermione drily.

She followed his eyes now, towards the kitchen.

"What did Tonks have to do, to crack through all… that?" she said. "Your world is complicated. Hers is anything but."

He grinned. "You'll want to be like her when you grow up," he said lightly.

Hermione sighed at that. "I'll be the complicated one," she said. "I think we already covered that. How do people break through all that?"

Remus felt this, now, was so far outside his job description it was probably inside someone else's – but then, he wasn't a professor anymore.

"Marauding thieves will find a way," he said, referencing their earlier conversation. "But enough with the metaphors," he added. "Love is not a breakthrough, and it is not an ambush, and it's not an affliction. It is what it is, beautiful and compelling and inherently _simple_. Even in a complicated world, you will find it."

"Simplicity," she said.

"Yes. Whether you allow those moments to change your life – well, that's up to you."

Half-truths again, he thought, and until she learned to ask the right questions, this was what she'd get. The question wasn't whether this was love. Whether it was simple, or compelling, or even beautiful. It was all these things.

The question was whether he was being an idiot to let it change his life. And he was still unable to answer it.

"That's very abstract," said Hermione.

"Has to be," said Remus. "It's different for everyone, and it's different every time."

"… You realise you're making me _more_ curious, rather than less," said Hermione. "What was it this time? For you and Tonks?"

He gave an involuntary noise of defeat. "Sod-the-lord," he said.

The expression on Hermione's face told him that this was not what she had expected. " _What_?" she said, affirming it.

"Or Oldiemort. Trolldemort. Hold-the-fort. We were guarding something for the Order," said Remus. "I believe it was a bridge. A very boring bridge, and very shaky evidence that the Death Eaters were going to attack it. Yes. It was an eight-hours-in-the-London-rain, guarding-a-railway-bridge, starting-to-reevaluate-your-life-choices sort of assignment."

"I believe you painted the picture," said Hermione.

"To kill some time, Nymphadora suggested a game of Voldemort-based puns. Free pint for the winner, bonus points for referencing obscure Muggle subculture – all in all, exactly the sort of thing Voldemort would commit genocide over. Between Loldemort and Voldieshorts, she won fair and square."

"I can imagine," said Hermione with a laugh. "So Tonks made you laugh. You always loved a good Riddikulus."

"Later that night, she also took down three Death Eaters with a single spell, then tripped over air and fell in the Thames," said Remus. "She is a woman of many talents, most of which I find impressive – although I'd have preferred not to get so very wet rescuing her."

" _Tonks_ needed rescuing?" said Hermione.

" _She_ _fell in the Thames_ ," said Remus. "No, she didn't need rescuing, but I wasn't going to stand there shouting helpful advice from the waterfront, was I?"

Hermione smirked. "You saw simplicity," she said.

"I saw," he said, with a grin, "a Grindylow."

He remembered. It had probably been a sign of him getting old, but he'd assumed people were done after a night like this. Not Tonks. _All in all, not my worst first date_ , she'd declared over her three a.m. victory pint. By then, he had been sore with laughter. _In what universe was this a date_? he'd replied. _It is now_ , she'd said, and taken him home.

"Are you happy?" asked Hermione. "After all this – after the war. Can you be happy?"

That was a big, uncomfortable question, and he was disappointed himself that he would have to give her such an unsatisfactory answer.

"Happiness is fleeting," he said. "Always has been, always will. And yes, I am."

"But you don't expect it to last," said Hermione.

"Shh," he said. "Don't wake the monsters. It's a beautiful summer's day."

"Oh, Shakespeare _again,_ " said Hermione. "Remember what he had to say about summer days."

Before he could answer, the kitchen door opened on the other side of the garden. Outlined in the warm rectangle of light stood his wife, _finally_ , saying her goodbyes to Molly.

"They pass," he said eventually. "And tomorrow is upon us." He checked his watch. "Quite literally."

He knew Hermione was looking at him quizzically, but some lingering restraint kept her from questioning this. He wasn't sure he understood it himself.

They watched Tonks bouncing down the kitchen steps energetically – not tripping this time – before crossing the garden in wide strides.

"I should go," said Hermione, getting up from the bench.

"Probably," said Remus. "You'll want to be well-rested tomorrow."

"I won't tell Harry," she said. "It's probably all too – too much to take in right now. He might not know how to react."

He shrugged. "I don't mind," he said. "Or I wouldn't have told you. Hope it helped."

"It did," said Hermione. "Thank you."

"It was a privilege," he said softly. "Teaching you. Take care."

He got up himself, and together they walked to meet Tonks in the middle of the garden.

"Wotcher, Hermione," said Tonks. "Wow, will you look at your hair! I didn't think it could get any bigger."

"Flying doesn't seem to agree with it," said Hermione, a tad self-consciously.

"Oh no, I love it! Might have to steal the look for the wedding." She smiled, before turning a smidgeon more serious. "Mr Tonks, I'm taking you home. Thank you for waiting up."

"I'm all yours, Mrs Lupin," said Remus. In his periphery, he saw Hermione smirk.

"Thanks for letting me borrow him, Tonks, I'm slightly less terrified now," said Hermione. "Of flying, at least," she added after a moment's thought.

Tonks laughed. "It's only fair," she said, "seeing as I'm taking your boyfriend for a spin tomorrow."

"Ron's not my –"

"Could have fooled me," grinned Tonks around a bright green bubble gum. She was electric today, her hair an eighties rock mop of blue-black hair, framing her heart-shaped face.

"Guess I'll see you guys tomorrow then," said Hermione. "Good night, Tonks. Good night, Remus. And thanks again."

"You're welcome, Hermione," said Remus politely, suddenly feeling more fatigued than he had in a long time.

They watched her walk back towards the porch before they spoke.

"So what do you think?" said Tonks.

"She'll never be a professional Quidditch player," said Remus. "But she can do a mean Patronus while hanging upside down in a raincloud, so there's that."

Tonks whistled through her teeth. "Impressive," she said. "How many tries did that one take you?"

"Four?" said Remus. "But I was distracted."

Next to him, his wife grinned mischievously. "I remember," she said. "However, that's not why I sent her here and you know it."

"You didn't, did you?" he said. "They're going into war," he added after a moment. "Nothing I could say made that fact any better."

"Oh, love, were you being your usual cheerful self?"

"Did you not expect this?" he said, resisting the urge to raise an eyebrow at her. They'd had discussions about the eyebrow. She'd said it made her feel like a school girl.

"Well, she got the pep-up talk from me," said Tonks. "Looks like she got the dose of reality from you. Between the two of us, the kids will be all right."

And then she took his hands in hers and a much-awaited chill went down his spine.

"We need to have a talk," she said. "A big, serious one."

He remained silent for as long as he could bear. Eventually she stood up on tiptoes to look straight at him, daring him to say it.

Remus sighed. "I know, love," he said. "I _know_."

* * *

 _To be continued_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note** : And here we are, almost at the end. 'Tis but a coda, but needed to be on its own, because it draws the whole thing together (… I hope). Thank you for reading, and as always I'd love to hear what you think ^^

* * *

Tonks closed her eyes, stormy grey today, and he saw that she understood.

"You are far too perceptive," she said. "Should have known. You have as much practise counting the days of the month as I have, haven't you?"

"I'm not – ," he said. "I'm not keeping a calendar on you or anything."

"Because that would be weird," said Tonks.

"Bit weird," said Remus, and it was, it was definitely a bit weird. He could perceive the clockwork, the waxing and waning inside his wife, with a sense he couldn't even name. And it had derailed just after the wedding and oh _god_ he was mixing metaphors now.

"That's what you were talking to Molly about, isn't it?" he said, trying not to let on that he was ignoring visions of an impending train crash.

"Well," said Tonks, trying to keep a straight face but failing utterly. "You can't deny that she has tonnes of experience with that sort of thing."

At that, he laughed. "True."

"Most people would probably go to their own mums, but she'd have flipped out, probably, and it's – it's too early," said Tonks. "For flipping out, one way or the other. It could still just go away on its own."

Remus truly hoped that the long pause that followed didn't betray his thoughts on the matter. That it could be so, so easy. He had a feeling it wasn't going to be.

"I know it's not what you wanted," she said, in the face of his silence.

And still he was stalling, trying to think of words to say, the right words, but no words had the power to change any of this. He realised any passing second was making this worse. "It would be insanity to deny my role in this," he said finally.

"And you're not –" she began.

She didn't say _what_. Angry. Disappointed. Terrified. He was all of these things. He didn't think he'd been this scared of something since the first war.

"Because I am," said Tonks.

"You are?"

"Little bit," she said, and he saw she was shivering despite the lingering heat.

"Oh, love," he said. "Come here."

He drew her towards him. He couldn't not. The late James Potter himself may rise from his grave just to slap some sense into him if he did anything but hold her right now. His wife in his arms, her head on his shoulder, he breathed in, the green apple scent of her bubblegum and something different, alien, new.

"Still not flipping out, I see," she said into his collar. "That's good."

"Give me a minute, I'll get there," he said, and to his credit, he was mostly joking.

He remembered how terrified James had been, back then, how Sirius'd had to go and slap some sense into _him_ , and that just made him hold on tighter. It was easier being brave when he had nothing to lose.

"Remus."

It was the voice that did it. It wasn't the joking voice, the tripping-over-nothing voice, or even the rare sincerity of her wedding vows. It was the voice that drew him back from the darkness.

With that voice, she said, very softly, "You realise we still have a choice."

He breathed out, slowly. He knew what she was offering, and how much it cost her, and so it couldn't be what he wanted. Not like that. "That's illegal, Auror Tonks," he said gently.

"Muggles," she said simply.

"Well then," he said, gathering what he hoped was strength. He hoped it wasn't stupidity. "You know my thoughts on the matter, and it feels like entirely the wrong moment to repeat them. This choice is yours to make."

Funny, he thought. It didn't feel like strength, and different from any stupidity he'd known so far.

"That's very progressive of you, love," she said drily. "But I won't. Not before I know whether you will be by my side." She drew back, just a little, to look him in the eyes. Hers were darker now, full of feeling.

He didn't trust himself to speak, but it was with regret and relief and abject terror that he found himself capable of nodding.

Seal his future, seal his fate.

He'd told her, when they'd first discussed this, of the terrible fact lodged deep in his memory: All four of Fenrir Greyback's biological children were werewolves. Two of his grandchildren were, too. _But you know what he is_ , she'd said gently. _I know exactly what he is_ , he'd said. _He thinks I'm his. And all that is mine, is his_. And now not even that had swayed her.

Despite everything, the smile that spread over her face was purely wonderful. Simplicity.

"I know I'm insane, love," she said. "I know I'm sentimental. I know I'm naïve. _I want a family_."

She was all of these things, he thought. He probably was, too. "And you are quite sure that you want it now," he said, "and that you want it with me."

" _I married you_ , you pillock," she said.

She was only wearing a raggedy tank top and a pair of ripped shorts in the summer heat, and he could feel her body through it, more angular then soft, pressed into his. They were both thinner than they should be. It had been madness from the start, that affair, that inevitability, that rock'n'roll marriage.

"Well then," he said, feeling utterly overwhelmed. "One of us will have to learn how to cook."

"Not me, I have a very demanding job," she murmured.

"I failed my Potions O.W.L.," said Remus. "Slughorn said he didn't trust me to make _tea_."

"Joke's on him, then," she said. "You make tea just fine. Oh god. Does this mean we have to learn common household spells now?"

"No more chocolate for breakfast," he said.

"No more smoking in the bathtub," she said.

"We'll probably have to get out of bed on Sundays."

"Paint the spare room."

" _Find_ the spare room."

"Oh god."

"Oh _god_."

Over Tonks's shoulder, he noticed Hermione on the porch, looking back at them. Lord knew how they must look. Peaceful. In love. Embracing under the indigo summer sky, amidst the decorations for someone else's wedding.

Behind his wife's back, he waved for Hermione to go away, a little surprised at himself that this was where he drew the line. This was private.

Hermione, bless her, left without another look.

"Are you still going?" he asks into that tumbling mass of blue-black hair. "Tomorrow. It'll be dangerous."

"You, Mr Tonks," she said, "have as much reason to stay home as I have."

"And as much reason to go as you, Mrs Lupin," he said. He'd never in a thousand years say this out aloud, but he thought, quite hard, _Please don't make me choose_. Between the kid he had failed, and the family he was going to fail.

"If you're going, I'm going," she said simply. "And I know you're going. Remember our wedding vows."

He did. " _Together_ ," he said, and thought of fools, and dusty death.

"We're seeing this through," she said. "This war. To the end."

It was easier to nod this time. Tomorrow they'd get Harry. Tomorrow, they might die trying. If this were Shakespeare, then the final act was upon them.

 _A tale told by an idiot_ , he thought, _full of sound and fury. Signifying –_

What, exactly?

Maybe Hermione was right and this was a comedy. After all, it had started with laughter.

* * *

 _The End_.


End file.
